


Through the darkness

by bamfleur



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Earth, F/M, Idk i'm bad at tagging, M/M, Post Season 4, Underground, after praimfyre, dont have a beta reader, english is not my mother tongue, fic will be written in multiple povs, hope is not yet lost, i just love the 100 and needed to write something after THAT finale, sorry if there are grammatical errors or similar things, space, what happened during those 6 years
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-29 01:24:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11430270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bamfleur/pseuds/bamfleur
Summary: What happened in those six years after Praimfyre... Set in three different locations - The bunker under Polis, on the ark and on the earth's surface - it'll be written from different POV's, telling different stories at different times. I don't know where I really want to go with this fic, but my bleeding heart just needed to write something after they destroyed us in the finale lol





	1. Clarke

**Author's Note:**

> I just want to point out that I'm in no way a nuclear expert or anything of that kind, I just researched a bit and stumbled over the term "nuclear winter". It's one hypothesis on what could happen after nuclear annihilation, and well I was too lazy to search for other possibilities so I just went with it lol. This is purely a work of fiction and while I try to stick to the science, it's just how I imagine it could be :') ok thx enjoy

The first time Clarke left the bunker, she didn’t know what to expect. But when she saw the wasteland Praimfyre had left behind, it was so much worse than she could have ever imagined.

Burned trees stretched their black branches into a grey sky, looking like dead limbs. The ground was scorched with only some parched bushes fighting for survival. The lush green of the forest had vanished, there were only ashes and chaos as far as Clarke’s eyes could see. And it was cold. After the firestorms which had raged for the first month, she thought it would be nearly unbearably hot, but instead the world seemed to be plunged into darkness. The Hazmat suit Clarke wore for protection – she didn’t dare go out without it yet – helped a bit, but her unhealed blisters rubbed roughly against her clothes, even if she had put on the softest and most comfortable ones she could find. However, Clarke just hadn’t been able to bare the thought of staying in that bunker for one second longer, the memories of her friends and her loneliness threatening to overwhelm her. She also needed to search for food sources – the bunker had supplies which would last her approximately for the next four months, if she rationed it carefully – but afterwards? _The next four years?_ No, she didn’t want to think about that. Too much pain, too much fear.

Instead, she took a deep breath and made her first step into the dead land. Because that’s what it was – dead. No sound was to be heard, not a living thing to be seen. She inspected the brown grass she was standing on, hoping for an ant or _anything,_ but there wasn’t even a rustling. She was completely alone.

During the last two months, she had been mostly trying to get through, well, _not dying_ , through the blisters, bloody vomiting, and nausea, through seizures, diarrhoea, skin burns and temporary vision loss. How she had managed to survive, she had no idea, but, gradually, she had gotten better. It had been a constant battle, even the most basic tasks often led to her passing out from the pain. Some people would call it a miracle. For Clarke, it was just one, big, ironic joke. The person who had destroyed the world, survived. A fitting punishment.

Clarke gritted her teeth and pushed her thoughts away. She needed to focus on reality. And right now, that meant survival, and survival only. She forced herself to start walking, one step after the other into what was left of the world. Skeleton-like trees and thick layers of ashes, which seemed to absorb the pallid light that appeared to come from nowhere, and gave the whole atmosphere a sort of eerie aura. A chilly wind raised some dust and whirled particles up, Clarke’s own death dance swirling around her. The sky was dark. Everything Raven had told her about this worst-case scenario came back: Due to all the gigantic firestorms caused by the exploding nuclear warheads, great plumes of smoke, soot, and dust were sent aloft, lifted by their own heating. In high altitudes, they could drift for weeks before dropping back or being washed out of the atmosphere onto the ground. Black clouds would form – had already formed – and blocked sunlight. This led to a temporary cooling of the air, which meant that surface temperatures would also drop, as Clarke remembered. A shiver ran down her spine. While the lab would protect her from black rain and icy winds, it wasn’t necessarily warm, especially since all the power control panels had been destroyed. Consequently, she had to find… furs? Some isolating material, which would keep her warm and the frost at bay. Subfreezing temperatures also meant that plant photosynthesis would be interrupted and she would not be able to grow crops or something similar. She wished Monty were here. She wished they were all here.

Clarke sighed, and continued her journey through the wasteland. Her oxygen tank indicated she still had two hours left. She didn’t even know what exactly she was looking – she just knew she had to see what the world looked like after her decision.

\---

“I still have hope.”

Clarke had been walking for what felt like days. She had lost track of time some hours ago, and when she stumbled over a rock it was as if she had just woken from a deep slumber. She had been wandering through the lost land as if in trance, too exhausted to notice how the minutes had run by and her oxygen tank had been dangerously low. Clarke hadn’t had a choice when she took off her helmet, and drew in a shuddering breath. The air had tasted sour and ashy. She had been scared, but she also knew she would die anyway if her body hadn’t become resistant to the radiation at that point. She just wished she would have had more time to adapt.

But nothing had happened.

So now Clarke looked up into the dark sky, a layer of grey which hindered any sunlight to come through, but she knew behind that, somewhere in space, there was life. She didn’t know anything of Octavia and her mother, dead or alive underground in Polis, if they had made it in time, but she trusted in what she had seen: Raven and Bellamy and the others rocketing to safety, to the ark.

 “Do you hear me?”, she suddenly shouted, “I still have hope!”.  The black land around her gave no answer. It was so easy to give in to the guilt that threatened to crush her. There had been times where she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, nearly collapsed under the weight of what she had done. Clarke doubted that those feelings would ever go away, but something always pulled her back to the surface, some deeply-rooted fighting instinct that saved her. _Who we are and who we need to be to survive are two very different things._ Bellamy’s words came to her mind suddenly, and a sad smiled played around her mouth. To survive, she would push through this. She would stand through snow storms, draught, and flooding, yes, she would weather through everything nature’s forces threw at her, and emerge living at the other end. Clarke knew Bellamy would do the same. Even if they thought she was dead, she trusted Bellamy to not let her sacrifice be in vain.

Maybe she was the last human on earth, but she wasn’t the last human in history. To that hope Clarke clung like a drowning person to a raft. She needed to stay sane over the next years, and hope would help her to do that. “I’m not the last”, she whispered, looking up to her friends, who fought their own battle of survival over the heavy blanket of clouds. “I’m not the last.”

 


	2. Bellamy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Echo and Bellamy have a talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried my best to stay true to the characters! Hope u like it

Once again, Bellamy found himself with a bottle of vodka sitting next to the window which gave view to planet earth. He had read how the first space explorers had described earth as “an oasis against the backdrop of infinity”, how they had praised the vibrant colours. Before he had secretly boarded the prison ship an eternity ago, he had often told little Octavia of the wonders of space, of the billions of stars in a seemingly endless ebony expanse, and the little blue dot called earth which was responsible for their existence. O had always listened with big eyes, absorbing every word like a person dying of thirst.

But now, Bellamy felt nothing. He stared down, and saw the planet engulfed in darkness. A dark grey screen veiled the intense blue of the ocean and shrouded everything from his sight. It felt as if the world wanted to mock him, putting even another barrier between him and his home. His home didn’t exist anymore though, because Clarke had been it and she was dead, left behind.

“Bellamy?”

Bellamy jolted from his thoughts, and turned around quickly. It was Echo.

She looked different than on the ground. After some days in the ring, Emori had managed to persuade her to change out of her grounder clothes, and now she looked like a complete other person. She wore jeans and a simple white T-shirt, and had thrown over a black leather jacket. Her hair wasn’t braided back anymore, but fell loosely down her shoulders, probably freshly washed. Absently, Bellamy wondered if she had ever heard of shampoo before the ark.

“What?”

He didn’t want to be rude, but the alcohol was getting to his head and he couldn’t muster the strength to care.

Echo showed no indication that she had been hurt, instead examining him with an expressionless face, until she said: “They wanted me to come and get you. Raven said she was near to a breakthrough in establishing communications.” She spoke with an accent, but she was a quick learner. In the three months, they were in space now, she had nearly perfected the English language.

“This is the sixth time Raven said she ‘neared a breakthrough’. Let’s just face it, we are alone.” “Don’t you want to talk to your sister? To your people?” “You mean the sister you tried to kill, twice?”

Echo remained silent. Bellamy didn’t know why he was like this – usually, he was the one who always kept hope alive, speaking to the others when he noticed they were struggling, checking in on them, trying to distract them when everything got too much. He had especially helped Echo over the past weeks, sensing how hard it was for her to adjust to her new life. Now something was different though – she had caught him at an inconvenient time, the time he always reserved for when most of the crew had gone to sleep and the daily, busy activity had died down, the time when he let his façade of a strong leader crumble, and instead drowned his guilt in vodka.

Echo snatched the bottle out of his hand. “Yes. I tried to kill her, but it was never personal. I always tried to do what I believed what was best for my people.” She paused for a moment. Then she added: “Like you.”

“And now look at us”, Bellamy laughed bitterly, “We were never further away from our people than right now.” He couldn’t stop himself from looking at the bottle a bit too desperate. “At least they live. We did everything we could to ensure their survival.” “We could have waited longer.” Echo crossed her arms, still gripping the vodka tightly. “This isn’t about the clans, or Skaikru.”, she said. Bellamy noticed how she didn’t include ‘Skaikru’ with the others, but still saw them as something separate. “This is about Clarke.”

Her name alone was like a jab into his heart. He didn’t think it would ever go away. He said nothing, but he knew his silence was enough. There was a bitter taste in his mouth, and it didn’t come from the drinking. Bellamy turned away from Echo’s face, instead staring out the window, he didn’t see how something in the former grounder’s cold, impassive look changed. A sudden softness shone through her eyes.

“Bellamy”, she said again. “You are allowed to grief. We all do. But do not let guilt consume you. We couldn’t have waited any longer. Clarke knew she would not make it, and instead chose to do everything she could to help us. Didn’t you yourself say we cannot let her sacrifice be in vain?” “Yes. We are surviving, aren’t we?”, he said, his voice far rougher than he wanted. “We should not only survive. But live.”

This hit him. A punch of truth, that knocked the air out of his lungs. Clarke would have wanted that.

Echo continued: “When Rowan banished me, I… I was lost. I had nowhere to go. My family had long been dead, and I didn’t really have any ‘friends’. But up until that point, I’ve always had my clan, my people. Everything I did was for them. When I lied, it was for them. When I killed and murdered, it was for them. When I admitted treason by interfering in the conclave, it was for them.” She laughed humourlessly. “And then my king died, and I thought that would be the end. But then your sister offered protection for all clans, even when I discovered that Skaikru had, once again, betrayed us all.” Disdain crept over her face. “But she believed in you, so I had no choice but to do the same. I knew how much you loved her, so I held my tongue and waited, to save my clan.”

She paused for a moment.

“Octavia held her word, but when she didn’t let me in, I felt… betrayed. The first night outside, black rain fell and nearly got me. I remember running through the acid, contemplating if I should just stop and die, there and then. What did a day matter? But even though my heart screamed for all of it to be over, my brain told me to survive.”

Bellamy nearly choked at that. It was all too similar to what Clarke had said – That he should use his brain too, and not only think with his heart. Which is what he had done eventually, when he had closed the drop ship door.  

“I managed to find a cave, and lay there the whole night, trying to endure the burns. The next day I heard your rover passing by, and I knew that maybe it wasn’t all over yet. I followed the tracks, and saw you. I knew this was my chance. You know the rest.”

“Yes, you tried to kill yourself.”

That came out harsher than he intended to, but Echo didn’t seem to be shocked. “When you said we were going to space… That was not what I bargained for. You were all so busy, so motivated and hopeful. I was just… I felt numb. You all knew each other, trusted each other – even Emori was included. I was the only outsider, I mean what were the chances that you wouldn't kill me as soon as the tiniest fight would break out?” She scoffed, shook her head. “But then you stopped me. I don’t know. Somehow, when all hope is lost, people seem to look to you.”

_They follow you, you inspire them._

Clarke’s words rang in his mind, clear as a bell.

“I never asked for this.”, he finally said. “Clarke was always the true leader. She had the strength to do what had to be done. Now that she’s gone… I don’t know if we can do it. We’ll be here, on the ark, for the next five years, and we are in the possibly most dangerous environment ever: space. One mistake, and we are all dead.”

“You have strength too. You closed that door, Bellamy, leaving behind the girl you loved in order to save all of us.” “Loved?” Echo furrowed her brows. “Yes. Or do Skai people describe it with other terms?” Bellamy opened his mouth and closed it again. It did not matter anymore. “No, no. You’re right. I… loved her.” Saying it aloud hurt even more. Bellamy hadn’t just _loved_ her though, he had trusted her. This bond they shared – had shared – was so deep it was rooted into his soul. He missed it. Communicating without words, being able to read her just as easily as he could read a book, the way her hair caught the light, how she always slept so silently and still like a stone, the warmth of her hugs, the electric tingling he got whenever she touched his hands – he all missed it so much, he felt like suffocating. 

 

\---

 

Bellamy turned around when he heard steps coming closer, it sounded like a person running through the corridor. A second later Monty emerged from the shadows of the hallway, out of breath and with pink cheeks.

“THERE YOU ARE! We’ve searched everywhere for you!”

“What is it?”, Echo asked, maybe a bit sharper than necessary.

“Guys…” Monty’s eyes sparkled, “We’ve managed to fix the radio. There’s a message from Earth. And not from Polis- but from the Lab.”

 

Bellamy felt like breathing.

 


End file.
